Chalice of Blood
by Robespierre-vs.-Napoleon
Summary: Phoenix Saga: Book 1-Joanne Mercer has been rescued from a frozen fate by the Golden Trio in their sixth year, and quickly becomes friends with them. Her life seems perfect. But when Harry starts getting help from the Half-Blood Prince's old book, suspicions arise, friendships are tested, and nobody is safe. Who is the Half-Blood Prince, and what does he want with Joanne?


_***SIGH* I can't believe I'm writing Harry Potter fanfiction. But, here I am. Please be nice, as this is my first serious attempt to write a fanfiction from this fandom. It starts in their Sixth Year around October, and I'm pretty much screwing with canon. Oh well.**_

_**I won't be able to update often as school started today. But I'll update as often as I can...maybe about once or twice a week, maybe more. Who knows?**_

_**Also, I think I've discovered a new magical creature...the Review Box. If you don't feed it reviews, then it eats a main character! Please, this thing is really hard to control...so PLEASE feed it with some delicious reviews-after all, it only takes a few seconds to review.**_

_**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter or any related products, J.K. Rowling does! I only own my OFC.**_

* * *

"Did you finish the homework for Charms?" Harry Potter asked his obviously sleep-deprived friend, Ron Weasley. The Weasley boy was slumped over the table with barely enough energy to stay upright. Hermione Granger, the brains of the Golden Trio, was currently eyeing her large copy of "Hogwarts: a History" for the millionth time that year alone, while also taking small sips of pumpkin juice and occasionally toying with a curl from her unruly mane of bushy brown hair.

The tired red-head asked groggily, "We had homework?" and then promptly fell back asleep, leaning on Harry's shoulder.

Hermione gave her friend a disapproving glance as she set her book down. "Honestly, Charms homework is quite easy. I've not the slightest idea how he could ever forget. Homework is very important, it's what makes your grade, practically."

"'Mione, that's you. You're the smartest one here," Harry laughed as he nudged Ron's head off of his shoulder. "Besides, the poor bloke was up all night trying to do his Transfiguration work. I'm not surprised that he forgot about it." She rolled her eyes at him in response as Ron shifted his body, stirring from his light slumber session on the wooden table.

Harry continued, "Charms is first thing, isn't it?" She stuck her red-and-yellow-striped Gryffindor bookmark into her large novel, then set it down on the table as her finished plate disappeared with a flash, and nodded in confirmation. Harry looked down and noticed that his own plate, as well as everyone else's, had disappeared, him having not realized that he was finished. He had been too absorbed in the small talk to notice. "Hey, Hermione-"

Dumledore stood up at the head table, spreading his arms wide as if parting the Red Sea, requesting their silence. The whole of the Great Hall fell into a hush before the old wizard spoke. "Students, I am afraid to inform you that, due to certain circumstances, any and all Charms classes are cancelled for today. In the time period that you would have this class, I ask that you stay in your house's common room until the next period. Thank you, and have another...magical day at Hogwarts." Everybody looked around in shock. Only once or twice could any of the older students-or any student, for that matter-recall a class being cancelled for any reason. None of the teachers were ever really ill or unable to come to class, so this came as a surprise for them. However, everybody just brushed it off and bustled off to their class or common room. Hermione, however, looked like she had caught one of the blokes in her class trying to peek up her skirt-in other words, extremely scandalized.

"But...but...but that's not how it's done!" she complained, putting her head in her hands, not noticing that herself, Harry, and the half-awake Ron were the only students still in the Great Hall. "I can't for the life of me recall anything like this happening!" Hermione hadn't noticed that Professor Dumbledore had walked up to the table in her rushed panic.

"Miss Granger, Mr. Potter, and Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore said, "you three are needed in the Charms room."

"What?" Harry asked, confused, as he readjusted his glasses with his index finger. "Isn't Charms class cancelled for today, Professor?"

"Yes, Mr. Potter, but you three are needed for some assistance," Dumbledore explained. "Please, come with me." He beckoned to them, his long, wizarding robes swishing around as he turned from them.

"C'mon, Ron, wake up," Harry nudged. Ron grumbled quietly under his breath as he rose up from the old wooden chair and leaned on Harry for support. "We have to go to Charms class."

Ron groaned in protest.

"Exactly."

* * *

Dumbledore stopped in front of the simple oak doors to the Charms classroom and turned around. "Now, this is a peculiar thing, and a thing that must be kept secret."

"Secret?" Hermione, ever the most curious one of the Golden Trio, questioned. "Why? What is there to hide?"

The old, rickety wizard sighed and rested his hand on the plain, golden doorknob. "We found something."

"What? What did you find?" Hermione pressed.

Harry flipped his misbehaving bangs away from his eyes and readjusted his iconic glasses yet again. As an afterthought, he pulled part of his hair over his lighting-bolt-shaped-scar. Nobody really needed to see that; it wasn't important, not to him, anyway. At the very least, it was a terrible reminder about the deaths of his parents when he was only a little more than a year old. Dead were his parents at the hands of Voldemort, and, as a result of the sacrifice of love that his mother had made, the Dark Lord's killing curse had rebounded and killed the spell-caster, leaving Harry with his scar as a reminder.

"A person," Dumbledore replied to Hermione, bringing Harry out of his flashback and snapping back to reality.

Harry asked, "A person?"

"Yes. A girl, to be exact." Ron seemed animated and stood attention, fully conscious now, at the word, 'girl.' Seemingly, he hardly even knew what a girl was, but he had dated once or twice in his years at Hogwarts.

Hermione winced. "Is...is she dead?"

"No!" Dumbledore frowned, wiping his brow with the sleeve of his great robes. "No. She is very much alive, thank Merlin." Harry noted the concern in his old professor's voice and wondered why he would ever be so vexed by the situation.

"Then why did you call us?" Harry asked. "Why call us if you just found a girl?"

"This might show you," Dumbledore replied, at last turning the knob and flinging the doors wide open, ushering Harry, Ron, and Hermione into the classroom before turning around. Looking both ways, he shut the door and locked it.

* * *

At the center of the room, there was a newly-and probably magically-constructed platform that had a large block of ice on it that gave off a fog. It would have made the room feel cold were it not for the fire roaring in the great stone fireplace behind the teacher's desk. Harry and his two friends gasped when they noticed what was encased in the large ice chunk: a girl about their age. She was frozen in place, her tannish-wand raised in readiness to cast a spell, the red light of a conjured spell frozen at the tip of her wand. Her black hair was flamed out behind her, like she had been running before being frozen, and her hazel eyes had a glint of fear, like somebody had been trying to hurt her, or as if something were coming to get her. She was dressed in torn jeans and a simple white blouse with a leather jacket, and her black boots were dusty and scuffed.

"Wha...what happened to her?" Hermione gasped beside Harry.

Dumbledore sighed. "She was being chased."

"Chased by whom?" Hermione asked. "You-Know-Who?"

"Precisely," Dumbledore replied, nodding. "She was being chased by him and a group of his Death Eaters. I happen to know that she's a very good witch, and she took out a few Death Eaters, and it would have taken a goodly amount of magic and fighting to make this happen. I called you three down here to unfreeze her."

"Not to be rude, but can't you do it yourself, sir?" Harry asked.

He sighed. "I am getting old, and this seemed like a job for only you three."

"Alright. Do you remember the spell, Harry? Ron?" Hermione interrogated. She groaned when Ron nodded no. "I'd expect as much from you. It's '_liquesco_,' and the wand gesture is just pointing...quite simple, actually. I think that you will manage."

Harry bobbed his head. "On the count of three."

"One..."

They raised their wands.

"Two..."

"Three! _Liquesco_!"

The blue light burst forth from the tips of the three friends' wands, shooting at the surface of the ice. There was a crack that slowly ran over the face of the block as the seconds ticked on by. Hunks would occasionally fall off and melt immediately, then disappear completely. The first part of the young woman's body to break free was her hip, then the rest of her body followed soon thereafter. As soon as her whole body was free, she collapsed to the ground, and the spell that had been frozen shot off over the four others' heads and into the fireplace, blowing it out.

Dumbledore rushed to the girl's side and gathered her into his arms. "Are you okay, my dear?"

The girl blinked her eyes slowly before opening them, the frightened glint gone. "...Where am I?" Hermione and the two boys tentatively stepped over towards her.

"You're in Hogwarts," Dumbledore responded. "Hermione, could you please make a cup of hot cocoa?"

Hermione complied, conjuring up a small cup in an old clay mug, and handed the cup to Dumbledore. "Here, dear, drink up," Dumbledore encouraged, lifting the drink to the girl's pale pink lips, parting them enough that the girl could drink it up. "Do you feel alright?"

"I...I guess so," she remarked. "But...where is he? All I can remember is him shooting a spell at me, and then I woke up here."

"He froze you," Hermione replied, putting her hand on the other girl's arm gently. "Then he left. You're safe now."

The girl laughed bitterly, sitting upright in the old man's arms. "I'm never safe."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

Dumbledore had a grim look set on his face, and opened his mouth in reply before the girl interrupted him. "I've been running from him my whole life."

"Have you ever gone to a magic school?" Hermione asked. "Beauxbatons? Anything?"

"No, I've never gone to a magic school, but I used to go to muggle school...until I was eight," the girl answered, crawling out of Dumbledore's arms. "But then, him and his Death Eaters...they burned down the school. Everybody was inside. I was lucky. I had been in the principal's office, helping her with some things, when the fire started. It was awful. She shoved me out of the window before the flaming ceiling came down on her and my best friend who was also there, Sierra. Nobody survived but me...not that anybody knows-in the muggle world, they think that I'm dead. Anyway, it was then that I discovered that I was a witch. I lived in the forests of England for a while, running from him, before I found my wand in the forest. It was just lying there, plain as day, and I guess that it just chose me-it's yew wood with a Runespoor fang core. I'm sorry, I've been so rude, talking about myself. But anyway, my name is Joanne."

"Wow," Hermione said sympathetically. "That's terrible. I feel so sorry for you. but what happened to your mother and father? Where are they?"

The girl looked down, biting her lip. "My mum is dead," she whispered, "and I don't know who my father is."

"Oh," Hermione muttered, embarrassed that she'd asked such a personal question. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"No, it's fine," Joanne said. "It's just that I miss my mum. But at least I have my grandfather."

"Grandfather?" Harry echoed. "Who?"

"Him," Joanne replied, gesturing with her wand towards Dumbledore. The look of pure shock on their faces would have put Edvard Munch's 'The Scream' to shame. Even the thought of Dumbledore ever doing the things that were required to make children was just plain disgusting.

"But...no, that's just wrong on so many levels," Harry moaned, rubbing his temples in circular motions as he tried to get the dirty mental images that were playing through his head out of his mind. "Dumbledore never had any kids."

"Yes, I most certainly did," Dumbledore declared, now sitting in the teacher's chair behind the oak desk. "My wife gave birth to my daughter, Phyllida, and then she later had my granddaughter here after my wife passed away. Phyllida, God rest her soul, died soon after Joanne's birth. She was sent to an orphanage before I could retrieve her, and then, the fire happened. We had just made contact and she was coming to Hogwarts to live here with me before she was frozen."

"I see," Ron nodded, understanding.

"...And now that she is attending Hogwarts," at this, the four young magical children looked up in surprise, "she will have to be sorted, don't you agree? Although it has never been done in the history of Hogwarts, the circumstances call for it."

"I agree," Hermione added. "It's only fair if she can be a member of a house."

"Alright, then it's settled," Dumbledore agreed. "She will be sorted tomorrow morning. Welcome to Hogwarts, Joanne Katherine Mercer."


End file.
